equality

Women in Lesotho should be celebrating another step towards true equality this week. And some of them should be preparing for Chieftainship. But they’re not. Instead the cause of women’s rights has suffered a severe blow – thanks to the reactionary ruling of the country’s Constitutional Court in the Masupha chieftainship case.

There is nothing extraordinary about Mary-Joyce Doo Aphane. Nor is there anything extraordinary – in most countries – about her desire to register a newly-bought property in both her and her husband’s names. What is extraordinary is that she still couldn’t do that in Swaziland in the 21st century, despite being married in community of property. And what is even more extraordinary is that she took on the out-dated, discriminatory laws in court and won – the first time that Swaziland’s 2005 Constitution has been used as the basis to protect women’s rights.

On Power Day at the OpenForum, I would like to introduce the idea of a new paradigm in international relations, which was introduced by the work of the drafters of the Rome Statute and the establishment of the International Criminal Court: this idea is that of law as a global tool to contribute to the world’s peace and security.

I believe the power of law consists in its ability to redress the balance between the criminals who wield power and the victims who suffer at their hands. I believe in law as power for all; it is the ultimate weapon that the weak have against the strong.

Senate Masupha’s landmark challenge to Lesotho’s discriminatory chieftainship laws earned her rave reviews from many people, with some claiming that she had clearly inherited the intrepid genes of her father, Gabasheane Masupha. Unfortunately, those might be the only thing she does inherit from her father after the Constitutional Court in Maseru ruled against her – rejecting her legitimate claim to the ‘Mamathe chieftainship purely on the basis of her gender.